Why does the U.S. want a total media blackout on long-term Afghan deal?

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

During a press conference yesterday, Safia Sediqi, loya jirga (which in the Pashto language means “grand council”) spokeswoman, said that Washington wants a complete media blackout over the conditions set forth in the new strategic long-term deal with Afghanistan, according to Press TV and BBC Persian.

Called by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the loya jirga began in the Afghan capital of Kabul on Wednesday and will run for four days.

The discussion will focus on the Afghan-American relationship, specifically the possibility of long-term American basis on Afghan soil after the U.S.-led coalition forces are supposedly going to withdraw in 2014.

Both political and religious figures in Afghanistan have been vocal in their opposition to American plans for long-lasting or very possibly permanent military bases on sovereign Afghan territory.

As I previously reported, the people of Afghanistan are increasingly seeing the foreign troops as occupying forces that are not protecting their security, which is reflected in the utter failure that the decade-long battle in Afghanistan has been.

As Press TV points out, the U.S. has not met its goals after 10 years and the security situation is abysmal despite nearly 150,000 U.S.-led foreign troops deployed around the nation.

The state-funded BBC Persian news network reports that the most common complaint amongst loya jirga participants is that they have not been provided with information about the terms and conditions of the long-term deal.

Sharifullah Sahak, an Afghan employee of The New York Times covering Kabul and provinces said via Twitter just four hours ago at the time of writing, “Loya Jirga members with different views saying government should sign the strategic pact for 10, 20, even for 50 years with US.”

Interestingly, according to Kuwait Times, Karzai assured both Russia and China that a long-term deal with the United States would not affect their ties to Afghanistan.

This is important due to the U.S. possibly goading China in the South China Sea dispute and the significant impact a sustained American military presence in Afghanistan would have on any Chinese-American relations in the future.

Karzai stipulated that if the United States ceased nigh raids and disbanded international bodies like the combined civilian-military reconstruction teams that play a governmental role, they would be prepared to allow U.S. troops in Afghanistan in the long-term.

He stated that they will allow military interests because he claims it is in Afghanistan’s benefit, which is highly questionable, at best.

It definitely didn’t benefit Iraq and it hasn’t benefitted Afghanistan thus far, barring the American war profiteers that make a killing off of the neo-colonialist occupation.

He claimed that “money will come to us” but this is also highly suspect, as a great deal of money, $31-60 billion (which is likely a conservative estimate seeing as it was investigated by the government Commission on Wartime Contracting) to be precise, has been “lost to waste and fraud” in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Taliban has stated that those supporting the sustained American presence in Afghanistan will be treated as “traitors” who are “deserving of harsh penalties,” according to Kuwait Times.

The major question that remains unanswered is why the American government wants a media blackout on the conditions of the deal.

Any situation in which a government attempts to or succeeds in creating a media blackout should, in my opinion, be treated with a great deal of interest.

Hopefully more information will unfold in the coming days as the loya jirga continues, that is, unless Washington succeeds in creating a total media blackout in which case we will only be able to wait and see while hoping for leaks.